This week we expose the scientists, NGOs, activists, politicians, journalists, media outlets, cranks and quacks who manipulate science data to achieve their objectives

Earlier this year the World Health Organization announced plans to cut its recommended daily limit for sugar in half, from 10% of total energy intake to 5%. Such a reduction would require a drastic change in the Canadian diet. A single can of soda in one day would be off-limits. So too a muffin and yogurt for lunch.

This announcement followed a February article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) claiming a link between sugar and heart disease. Which in turn prompted vocal anti-sugar lobbyists such as the Heart & Stroke Foundation, Canadian Medical Association and Childhood Obesity Foundation to demand Ottawa regulate in order to protect us all from sweet death. Based on these groups’ previous demands, we can assume any sugar regulation to be an incremental step towards taxation.

Most research shows sugar is as safe as spring water

Or mandatory sugar-free zones. Or an outright ban. Sugar is the new tobacco, after all.

Each of these hysterical accusations has been vigorously reported by the Canadian media. At the WHO press conference, for example, 13 journalists from around the world asked questions. Of these five − more than a third worldwide interest in the topic − were from Canada. Two were from the CBC. Canada is now the locus of global sugar anxiety. To date the federal government has properly ignored all efforts at demonizing sugar, claiming a lack of convincing evidence. The panic over sugar, both in terms of consumption and health impact, has been wildly exaggerated.

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While WHO seeks to chop sugar consumption to pre-modern levels, the influential U.S. Institute of Medicine recommends a far more reasonable maximum of 25% of daily calories from sugar. Canada’s Food Guide makes no specific recommendation, other than the always-sensible suggestion that moderation is preferred to gluttony. Best guesses put Canadian consumption of added sugars (ignoring naturally occurring sugar in fruit and juices) at a reasonable 11% to 13%. And the long-term trend suggests further temperance − a recent Canadian study found “added sugar intakes have been stable or modestly declining … over the past three decades.”

As for claims that soda is liquid man-killer, a closer look at the supporting evidence reveals numerous gaping holes, puzzlements and distractions, not to mention a troublesome lack of solid proof.

The much-hyped JAMA article used personal diet diaries from thousands of Americans to conclude individuals who consumed more than 25% of their daily calories as added sugar tripled their risk of dying from heart disease, compared to those at 5%. Soft drinks were singled out for special attention as they comprise the single biggest source of sugar in the American diet. “Regular consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with elevated cardiovascular disease mortality,” the authors state gravely. Yet this study holds little relevance to Canada. While soda is the number one beverage south of the border, our top three thirst quenchers are water, coffee and milk; Canadians consume less than half the total sugar from soft drinks as do Americans.

Further, the JAMA article’s claim of a connection between heart disease and soda is at sharp odds with its own raw data. The 11,733 participants involved over the 18 years of the study were divided into groups based on their weekly soda consumption. At the extremes are two similarly sized cohorts: 4,348 drank less than one can of sugary pop per week, 4,268 drank more than one a day.

Now if sugar-sweetened soda is the heart attack-inducing venom it’s claimed to be, the death rate among prodigious pop drinkers should stand out in lethal contrast. In fact the opposite is the case. Among the less-than-once-a-week group, there were 468 deaths from heart disease. For the similarly sized one-a-day crowd, a mere 183 deaths. The heart disease death rate in the low-soda group is two-and-a-half times higher than the rate for the high-soda group. It’s an odd result that raises as many questions about the study’s computer model methodology as with the healthfulness of sugar itself.

Surely the media-popular accusation that sugar − a food item familiar to humans for centuries − is actually a deadly poison requires an incontrovertible preponderance of high-quality evidence. Yet most research shows sugar is as safe as spring water.

In the academic journal Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, British researchers examined numerous randomized controlled tests − the gold standard for scientific evidence − looking into a host of allegations made against the natural sweetener. With respect to metabolic syndrome − the feared combination of fatness, high blood pressure and high cholesterol that’s implicated in heart disease, diabetes and stroke − sugar showed no impact, even when patients consumed nearly half their total calories in sugar: well beyond any recommended dietary limit.

Studies looking for a relationship between sugar and cancer, depression and dementia also turned up no connection, with the exception of colorectal cancer (although that disappeared when other factors were considered). “The available evidence did not support a single quantitative sugar guideline covering all health issues,” the authors concluded.

With respect to sugar and heart disease specifically, Dr. John Sloan, clinical professor at the Department of Family Practice at the University of British Columbia and author of the upcoming book “Delusion for Dinner: Unmasking the Myth of Healthy Eating,” has conducted his own literature review similar to above. He found “people fed sweet white sugar diets were not shown to have any greater likelihood of any real heart disease than people fed ‘healthy’ brown grains and fibre.” So you can have cardboard for dinner, or something a bit more delicious: the effect on your heart is the same. Plus, both sugar consumption and heart disease are in decline in Canada. If there is a link, it’s a positive one.

Finally, there’s even ambiguity over the role of sugar in weight gain itself. In a 2013 meta-analysis funded by WHO and published in the British Medical Journal, a majority of long-term cohort studies reveal no statistical link between sugar usage and increased weight gain or obesity. “No association between weight change and consumption of sweets or cakes was seen,” according to one summary. “No associations were seen between long-term consumption of sugar-sweetened soda beverages and overweight or obese status,” reads another.

Ottawa is right to resist the recent outbreak of sugar panic.

Peter Shawn Taylor is author of the recent Canadian Taxpayers Federation report “Tax on the Menu: Why food or drink taxes won’t make Canadians thinner, but will make their governments much, much fatter.” Available at www.taxpayer.com

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